


3am anxiety

by regionals



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: M/M, Past Abuse, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-07
Updated: 2018-06-16
Packaged: 2019-04-19 11:43:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14236542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/regionals/pseuds/regionals
Summary: It starts with a tarot reading and a fuck ton of nervous energy.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> this isnt going to be updated regularly im just.,. publishing a prologue just to obligate myself or w/e  
> this is a Massive vent fic because i got shit going on irl with relationsips and i need a place to vent  
> also thanks to the boy thats part of why im writing this for encouraging me to use 3am anxiety as a title  
> thats not passive aggressive i just genuinely love him hes great? id die 4 him?

Brendon wrings his sweatshirt sleeve with his left hand, tugging at it, and also chewing on one of the strings, waiting for Ryan to finish clearing his cards, or whatever he said it was that he’s doing right now. It doesn’t look like anything special--he’s just holding the deck in his hands, with his lips pressed almost delicately on the card at the top, and he looks like he’s focusing really hard. Brendon isn’t too into tarot readings, nor is he wiccan, but Ryan’s an influential fucker and has talked him into letting him give Brendon a  _ reading  _ on his current predicament. Ryan, of course, has no idea what the predicament is, but he’s still trying.

Ryan exhales eventually, and holds the deck towards Brendon. “Shuffle them, buddy.”

At eighteen, Brendon’s clumsy, and almost drops the damn deck as he’s taking them. “Is there a specific way? And how long?”

“Shuffle them however you want. Just keep going until it feels right. Also, try focusing on what your reading is about, and putting energy into it while you’re shuffling the cards.” Ryan smiles soft and sweet and for a blissful moment, Brendon forgets why they broke up.

Then he remembers that Ryan cheated on him and pretty much broke his heart.

Brendon shakes his head a little bit to get the thought out of his mind before he gets to shuffling the cards. He sucks at shuffling cards, so he ends up just spreading them all over Ryan’s bend, and spends another three minutes gathering them up and getting them back into a proper stack. He turns them a few times until his gut his basically screaming at him to hand it back to Ryan, specifying which end is the top and which end is the bottom.

“So, you don’t  _ have  _ to tell me what this is about,” Ryan starts as he’s placing cards, face down, three in a row, between where he and Brendon are sitting on his bed, “but it might help me give you a more… detail and in depth reading.”

Brendon sighs a little bit and adjust his position slightly. “It’s awkward talking about it with you because we were together for so long.”

“Just tell me, man.”

Brendon sighs again and lets out a tiny little groan before cracking. “I kind of want to ask someone out, but this person that I want to ask out is mega skittish with relationships—”

“So, it’s Dallon?”

“Hey, hey!” Brendon glares at him and reaches over to get him in the arm. “Shut up. I never said it was him.”

“Dude, he almost started crying because someone he didn’t like had a crush on him. A someone that isn’t you. Also, I’ve given him a handful of tarot readings, and  _ I know you.” _

Brendon mimics him under his breath. “Anyways. I just… want to be pointed in the right direction. Spencer was being a tool about it when I tried asking him for advice, so I figured I could talk to you.”

“Why was Spencer being a tool about it?”

“I don’t know, honestly. We were hanging out on the couch while you were at work last week, and I asked him, ‘Hey, Spencer, I kind of want to ask Dallon out, because we’ve been getting closer lately, and I think I really like him,’ and he couldn’t give less of a shit so I just… I dunno. You’re never a dick about things when I try talking to you.”

“Fair enough.” Ryan shrugs a bit, sniffs since he’s the kind of guy who always has a stuffed nose, and opens an app on his phone, saying something about how he hasn’t memorized the meaning of all his cards yet as he’s flipping the first one over. “This first card,” he taps on the card to his left, “is your card. It’s about you and your role in the relationship.” He flips it. “Oh, The Fool, reversed. The Fool is one of the Major Arcana. So…  _ In your excitement to start a new journey, you haven’t heeded the dangers that lurk around you. This card suggests excessive eagerness and no awareness of the consequences. You must plan more carefully about your journey ahead. Who else do your decisions affect?” _

Brendon physically cringes a bit. “What does that mean?”

“In my not at all professional opinion… Maybe you’re trying too hard…? I think this card is, basically, telling to you to take your time, and to be  _ careful,  _ not to mention to try to be more, ah, aware of your surroundings. You’re the kind of guy who likes to run into things. I’ve met Dallon and I’ve given him a handful of readings, like I said. He’s very tame and slow paced. Your personality is, like, ninety percent  _ fuck it.” _

Brendon nods. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Ryan gives him a quick thumbs up before flipping the middle card. “This card is representative of the dynamics of your relationship. This one is… The Moon, and it’s reversed. It’s also a Major Arcana. Anyways…” Ryan scrolls through a list of cards, picks The Moon, and reverses it.  _ “When dreams and fantasies come out to play, it becomes difficult to separate illusion from reality. Confusion reigns supreme here, and there is little understanding of what you can take as truth.  _ So, I think this ties into the last card.  _ You  _ need to think things through, and you probably need to take a step back to assess the situation.”

Brendon doesn’t verbally answer him, so Ryan flips the third card.

As soon as Ryan sees what card it is, he sighs. “Oh, for fucks sake.”

“What?” Brendon gives him a weird look.

“Every fucking time Dallon comes up, or I give him a reading,  _ this  _ is his card. Always. The only other time it wasn’t his card was when he got his cat. Anyways, Five of Cups, reversed.  _ Though times were dark, you may have recently been able to pull yourself out of a painful situation by looking forward, and through that you have found that not all has been lost. You’re beginning the process of moving on and healing from recent pain.  _ He, uh, won’t tell me what’s up, but he’s been going through some shit, and I’m  _ positive  _ that this card is about that.”

“So, what’s your say-so on all this?”

“To keep it short, I think I can safely tell you to be gentle with him, and not to rush it.”

“And how about your personal opinion?”

“Just from how you’re acting, and because of my need to see you in a relationship with someone who  _ isn’t  _ me or Spencer, I’m  _ begging  _ you to ask him out.”


	2. Part I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you think i forgot about this fic you're absolutely correct because i DID forget about it  
> we out here tho  
> also i need to add some trigger warnings to this fic ldjbljlj

“It sure would be a shame if there were a tall, devilishly handsome Mormon boy willing to let me borrow the sweatshirt in the backseat of his 2005 Chevy Impala.” Brendon  _ slooowly  _ turns his head to his left, giving Dallon a raised eyebrows sort of look.

Dallon rolls his eyes and takes a few seconds to take a drag of his cigarette before responding. “Just take the fucking sweatshirt, dude.” He sticks just his hand out of the window to flick his cigarette, getting rid of excess ashes. “You don’t have to be all weird and sly about it. Even if you had to, I still have, like, three of your t-shirts at my apartment that I haven’t given back to you yet. It’s only fair.”

“Do you you still have my Rush shirt?” Brendon asks with a few grunts here and there as he’s turning around and reaching into Dallon’s backseat, nabbing the sweatshirt that’s on the floorboard. “Couldn’t give less of a shit about the other ones, but I want that Rush shirt back. It’s a family heirloom.”

“Oh,  _ heirloom  _ my ass!” Dallon scoffs and gives Brendon a look once the other boy has put the sweatshirt on. “Your dad got it at a concert in ‘95, and you’re only calling it an heirloom since he died and you inherited his t-shirt collection, like, five years ago.”

“And? It was his, but now it’s mine, so therefore, it’s an heirloom. I’m sure my late father would agree with me.”

“From what you’ve told me, he’d probably call you a dork and tell you to knock it off. Anyways, yeah, I still have it. It’s in my laundry hamper. I’ll bring it over next time I go do my laundry.” By now, Dallon’s flicking a cigarette butt out of his window. “Enough of that. Where are we getting food?”

“I want Chinese food that isn’t Panda Express.”

“All we ever do is get Chinese, dude.”

“There’s nothing else that’s going to be open at eleven on a Tuesday, unless we want, like, I dunno, fast food. Chinese is technically fast food, but that’s our thing, y’know? Going and getting Chinese food in the middle of the night.”

“Added… There isn’t  _ dick  _ in fucking Provo this late.”

“I wish we weren’t so far from Vegas, man. There’s always shit to do in Vegas.” Brendon stretches, and twists a little bit to pop his back.

“Are you sure you don’t want anything other than Chinese?”

“Do you have any better ideas?”

“... No.”

“Let’s just go get Chinese, then.”

***

By the time the two of them have Chinese food, and are sat somewhere that’s not a restaurant or Dallon’s car, it’s about ten to three. They’re sitting on the fire escape of Dallon’s apartment, Brendon picking at his chow mein with chopsticks, and Dallon just going in with a fork on his chicken.

“It’s been a bit since I’ve seen you,” Brendon mumbles around a mouthful of noodles. “How are things?”

“Things are… definitely there.” It’s that time of night where they’re both a little too tired to give a shit about keeping up appearances, at least in front of each other. “Is it late enough to have a talk?”

Brendon checks the time on his phone.  _ 3:01 AM.  _ “It’s three, so yeah. It’s emo hours.”

“Cool.” He nods, and doesn’t say anything for a long time, just eating his chicken, bites getting smaller and smaller as time passes. “We were friends when, uh… The thing happened, right?”

“Which thing?” Brendon’s a little clueless. There’s been a few  _ things  _ that have happened.

“Like… A few months after you moved here, I think…? When I had to call you to pick me up?”

“From your ex boyfriend’s house, right…?” That night wasn’t a good night.

“Yep. That would indeed be the  _ thing.” _

“Did something else happen? I’ll kill the fucker if I have to.”

“No, no, nothing happened. I still have a restraining order and he hasn’t violated it. I just, um… I told my parents about what happened a few weeks ago.”

Brendon winces, and moves down a few steps so he can rest an affectionate hand on Dallon’s shoulder. “How’d they, uh… react?”

“A lot fucking better than I thought they would.” He lets out one of those empty laughs as he wipes at his right eye. “I was expecting them to yell and scream at me for being queer, if anything. I mean, you’ve met them. They aren’t exactly the most PC parents around. Uh.” He lets out a breath, and Brendon’s hand moves from his shoulder to his back, rubbing gently. “Mom cried. That’s just a given. Mom cried, I cried, and Dad was quiet for a long time. He looked pissed as soon as I said ‘boyfriend’ but his whole mood changed as I, like, explained. If it wasn’t about something so awful, I’d say it was funny.”

Brendon doesn’t kiss Dallon’s shoulder, because he knows that’d probably weird him out, but he does gently press his lips against it to get the point across. He’s better at comforting someone nonverbally than he is with words.

Dallon squeezes his knee. “Thanks. It was so weird.  _ No one  _ said anything for awhile, but then Dad asked if I… needed anything, and I dunno. I kind of blew him off but then Mom asked if I thought that I might need… therapy.”

“What’d you say?”

“I said yeah. I specified that I didn’t mean some weird conversion therapy, and then she cried  _ more  _ and was like…” Dallon smacks his lips a few times before putting on his best French accent.  _ “‘Oh, honey, no, no. Do you need  _ help?’ So, y’know, I cried like a little bitch because, yeah, shit’s been fucking awful recently, and as cool as Ryan is, he can only give me so many vague tarot readings before they start to lose their charm.”

“He really likes giving people tarot readings, doesn’t he?”

“Fuck yeah he does. Anyways. I--I need some fucking help, and I told her that. And Dad too, I guess, since he was in the room. Oh, fuck, dude, even my dad cried. Don’t know if I mentioned it yet, but he was crying too. The point of all this is that they’re paying for appointments with a therapist and a psychiatrist. Which is great. I need it. I had my first appointment with the therapist this morning, and the psychiatrist this afternoon.”

“How’d it go?”

“Weird. You were in therapy for awhile after your dad died, right?”

“Yep. I still see my psychiatrist once in awhile to get refills on my ritalin and sertraline.”

“You know how it goes, then. I went in so sure that the lady was gonna tell me that everything I’m doing is  _ wrong,  _ or that I’m overreacting to--to, y’know, but… no, man. Ugh, shit. Do you have cigarettes on you? I need a cigarette and I smoked my last one earlier.”

Brendon sets his noodles down next to himself and reaches into his jacket pocket for a lighter and a pack of menthols. He pops the top and pulls one out for Dallon. “They’re menthols.”

“That’s fine.” He doesn’t continue until the cigarette is lit and he’s exhaling smoke. “I dunno. She was totally cool about everything. Also… When you saw  _ your  _ therapist, were they, like, bound and determined for you to explicitly say things?”

“Oh, god yeah. I couldn’t just say my dad died--I had to explicitly tell her that I was the one who walked into our garage to find him hanging from a fucking noose.”

“Jesus. Yeah. It was some bullshit about needing to accept that it happened. She told me to  _ say it,  _ so I was all like,  _ ‘Haha, I don’t like the ‘r’ word,’  _ and  _ then  _ she just flat out said it and asked me to repeat her. It was fucking stupid. Like, not stupid, but the fact that it took me five minutes and, like, a few good tears to say it myself— _ ’Yo, I’m Dallon, I’m twenty four, and I’m a survivor of sexual assault and domestic violence’— _ was stupid.”

“That’s not stupid. I had panic attacks and threw up almost every time someone brought up my dad for at least six months when I was thirteen.”

“That… sounds like it sucked. Also,  _ god,  _ it felt so good to tell someone who wasn’t you. No offense. I just--you’re the one who was  _ there  _ for me that night, so you’re basically the only one I’ve told, save for my parents, therapist, and psychiatrist now.”

“And my mom. You stayed with us for a few months, remember?”

“Alright, yeah. That I remember. I remember that because, to this day, I still can’t eat rice without being reminded of that period of my life. Plus… I did gain, like, twenty pounds while I was living with you guys. Fat Dallon wasn’t a good look.”

“Yo, fuck off. Fat Dallon was  _ totally  _ a look. Shit, you weren’t even fat. In  _ my  _ opinion, I think you looked healthier than you have since then. Plus, if I’m being honest with myself, Fat Dallon was fucking adorable.”

“No, he was  _ not.  _ My hips were the most disgusting thing during that period of my life, not to mention my  _ legs.” _

“You’re barking up the wrong tree, because thick thighs are my  _ shit.” _

“I swear, you’re the only person in the world who likes the weird places my body stores fat.”

“Someone has to,” Brendon reasons with him. “If no one else will, then by god,  _ I  _ will.” 

Dallon rolls his eyes. “I kinda liked living with you guys, though. It was like an extended sleepover, except I cried a lot and neither of us really slept.” 

“It was cool. I didn’t like that you were sad, because that's something I couldn't just fix like some gay Ellen, but even then, I was and am still totally down to hold you if it helps. Also, you giving me rides to school was awesome. Like… That was nice. I wish I was still in school just so I could coerce you into driving me there.”

“I mean… College is always an option…?”

“No thanks.” Brendon shakes his head and shudders.

Dallon reaches over and gives him a side hug.

**Author's Note:**

> also if one of you ryden fuckers comments something about the moon i will personally drive to your house and piss on your pillows


End file.
